Comment from patty hutton

June 18 2009

To Whom It may Concern: I am writing to you today regarding several issues which I would love to get a response from you on. The first issue is the fact that Social security receipients will not receive a cost of living increase in their checks for the year 2010. The second issue is the horrible state of this economy which is turning out to be more of a mess than it was 6 months ago, when George Bush was in office. We are a family of 3 living on social security which my husband is on permanent social security disability with a terminal illness. We receive 1,000.00 a month to live on, that has to buy food, gas for car, utilities, bills, car insurance, home insurance, taxes on home, and everything else that you need to live day by day. It is getting increasingly harder with the price of gas soaring, medicine that I have to pay for which is close to over 200 a month because our insurance does not cover it, medical co-pays I have to pay, and part of my husband's medical insurance. So after I figure out who I can pay it doesn't leave much for food, no money for clothes or home repairs which we live in a 38 year old mobile home ( i have tried many different groups to help get a landing and handicap ramp built for my husband because the one we have is rotting apart and is becoming dangerous and guess what?? All their funding has been stopped. What kind of life is this supposed to be, we cannot even barely survive anymore with everything on the rise. And no one seems to give a good crap less. I would love to see any of you live on this income, pay what we have to pay, and make it. We're not. And now you want to stop the cost of living increase for the social security checks for the year 2010, are you people nuts? Are you going to freeze every price of everything that we pay for every month so we can barely survive again? Are you going to freeze the price of gas, food and utilities, medicine, health care and so on so we can barely survive each day? I don't think so. You people in goverment offices should live in normal people's shoes for just a month and see if you can make it. Believe me you won't be able to. It is really sad that all of you have gas accounts, petty cash accounts, nice homes, medical insurance and so on and maybe it is a alittle harder but you have food on your table and heat in the winter. I have a son who has had his hours cut in his job and cannot afford to buy his 2 sons clothes, I have to put ads on the internet to get them clothes, he is loosing his home and cannot find programs to help him, he is so far behind on his utilities that he can't get any help. You call this America the land of the free, what a joke. This economy has gotten so bad in the last 6 months and I have never seen so many people loose jobs, large companies closing down, people loosing their homes and cars, and yet, the goverment officials just go on every day as to say SO WHAT to their surroundings. I know President Obama could not make it on 1,000.00 a month and pay for what we as normal human beings have to pay for, but he still makes cuts. He has cut funding to all the programs that we as needy people look for to help us, there's none of that left. Maybe the goverment officials should rethink bills before they are passed or let the oil companies continue to raise prices like there is no tomorrow. They have us behind the 8 ball and they know it. I am very ashamed of the officials in goverment and what they are doing to people like us, but more than that I am very scared. I have a son to raise and a husband who is terminally ill. I worry every day about his health, will he make it tomorrow, can I afford his medicine, etc. I shouldn't have to worry about the economy too. That is enough to know when you wake up in the morning your husband might be dead. I am asking you to please put the social security cost of living raise in 2010, it's such a small amount every year but it helps out a tiny bit. You people are more than welcome to live on what we do every month and try to make a life out of something that is like a nightmare. I would appreciate your response. Patricia Hutton PO Box 139 Conneaut Lake, PA 16316